In a way, she supposed she became a new person after everything. The experiments, the creation of Ultron, losing Pietro, and becoming an Avenger changed her. The girl who cried for vengeance and suffering for the one who caused her pain became a the woman who wanted no one to suffer what she had gone through. Though that part of her was always there, beneath the surface, now it was all she had and it was better for her. It would make the healing process easier, not easy, in no means easy, but easier. Though, without him, everything just felt so cold.
As she looked up to the Captain, many things came into her mind. It was true she didn’t really get along with any of the Avengers at first contact as she had brought out their deepest fears back into their consciousness and eliminated their ability to fight back, of course she didn’t expect that they trusted her completely, even after the end of Ultron she didn’t think they all would give her an opportunity to prove herself. She suspected however, that with the loss of her brother the sacrifice he made for Clint Barton was enough for them to put most of what she had done to them, in the past.
She knew deep in her heart that Pietro would want her to let him go, not entirely but not so she would destroy herself over his loss, even though it would probably be affecting him the same way if their roles had been reversed. It was hard though, even with that thought in mind. She was always a rebel, always wanting to be her own person and making sure she could handle herself without her twin, even though she couldn’t really.
“I–, yes, I have the time… Steve.” It felt weird to say, if she was honestly speaking, but also… Nice. Like an opportunity, though still very strange. Formalities was a big cultural block that she never really change, but she saw Natasha and thought maybe it was possible to one day be comfortable with all the people currently around her, even if it was an act some of the time.
She tried to smile, as she walked alongside him, though she figured it wasn’t one of her best performances, she still put in the effort. Her attempt of a smile grew just a bit though, at his last words. “Thank you,” She replied back. Coffee was probably one thing nearly all the Avengers loved and wouldn’t get rid off so the abundance of it was amusing to Wanda. “Well, if Kate was with him, there might be one left…” She commented, hoping her attempt back was said well enough.
It was not easy to hold onto the person you might have been before a tragic loss. Steve knew that more than most. He had lost Dr. Erskine, Bucky, Peggy, the rest of the Howling Commandos the day he crashed the plane into the ice. He had gained new friends since then but the loss hadn’t let go of him and most days it was a struggle to remember why he still carried on. But carry on he did, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t.
But he wasn’t the same man he had been. In some ways, he had become harder, angrier, towards the world now. In other ways, he had become softer towards those who needed his help. Wanda needed help, his or someone else’s, and that’s why he wanted to take her under his wing, as it were. But only if she allowed him to.
He smiled as she tested out his first name, her voice sounding unsure with it but willing to at least try. He was usually a stickler for formalities but this wasn’t the situation for such things. If he was going to succeed in bonding with Wanda and helping her realise that she was not as alone in this world as she might believe, formalities would have to stay on the battlefield only. Heck, Falcon and Clint between them had come up with enough nicknames to use in the field instead of referring to Steve by his proper title.
They reached his office, which was bigger than the apartment Steve had grown up in back in Brooklyn before WWII. It was simply decorated, nothing too fancy or over the top. There were a few photographs in simple, silver frames on the shelves on one wall of Steve with the other Avengers. There was one of him and Bucky back when they were in school together and there was one of Peggy as he remembered her from their time together serving for the SSR. But those photographs were the only personal touch Steve had added to this space. The rest of the furniture had been picked out and provided by someone else with a more modern taste for such things than Steve, and that suited him just fine.
“Take a seat and I’ll see how many cookies the Hawkeyes have left us with,” he said with a small smile as he motioned to the pair of couches that were by the large window of the office. Sitting at his desk would be too formal. Steve busied himself with making fresh coffee for them both and thankfully Clint hadn’t managed to breach Steve’s secret stash of cookies just yet. Steve took two mugs filled with coffee, a small jug of cream, a bowl of sugar cubes, two teaspoons and a plate heaving with cookies on a tray over to the couches and put the tray on the coffee table between them.
“So,” Steve said as he took a seat on the opposite couch to Wanda and helped himself to a cookie. “I don’t know you all that well. What I do know, I respect greatly but that doesn’t make us friends, yet. Everything you’ve been through, everything you’ve seen, it’s going to take a long time to process it and I’ve found that process goes easier when you have a friend. This is me, in an extremely awkward way, trying to say that I can be your friend if you want, as well as your team mate.”
